


Soapskin

by emmaliza



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, M/M, Pining, Post-Gauda Prime, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: "I need your help shaving."A story about trust, and razor blades.
Relationships: Kerr Avon/Roj Blake
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	Soapskin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kink meme prompt: "PGP, Avon shaves Blake's rugged bounty hunter stubble for him. It's sexual. Could also involve shared shower and/or hair washing, and/or dressing each other sexily. Bonus points if the shaving's with a straight razor." Wound up considerably less porny than that prompt implies, soz.

Avon isn't even informed Blake is out of the medical bay before the man is knocking on his door, telling him he needs his help.

It's unsurprising. Avon knows he can't possibly say no – not when Blake has only narrowly escaped death at his hands, only spared by that Arlen woman's premature entrance, leaving Avon's shot puzzled between the two of them. The cast on Blake's arm is an ostentatious reminder of how near it was, so much so Avon wonders if he didn't ask his nurses to overdo it a little, just to make the point.

Even if Avon's cloying guilt would let him deny Blake anything after all that, it wouldn't be worth the added risk from Blake's new followers. It is only because of Blake's mercy he is in his own quarters, free to leave whenever he likes, not held in a cell on a charge of attempted murder. Blake's new crew seem a lot more protective of him than his last ever were.

So Avon follows without question when Blake leads him out of his room, off to whatever task he feels a god-given right to commandeer Avon's efforts for. He's not sure what he's expecting it to be. Something pointless and reckless, no doubt.

He's rather surprised when he's led directly to Blake's own quarters, and simply confused when Blake takes him further to the small en suite bathroom he has, where waiting for them is a basin full of warm water, a bar of soap, a washer, a chair, and a silver razor glinting in the dull pink light.

“I need your help shaving,” Blake says by way of explanation, already unlacing his shirt. Avon blinks. Under other circumstances, the gesture might pass for seductive. “Since my arm is out of commission for the moment, I can't do it myself. Not unless I want to chance slitting my own throat, which, after the last few days, would be rather anticlimactic.” He smiles, and Avon doesn't return it. “I did mean to get rid of the stubble earlier, but there never seemed to be time. That's the way, isn't it, you put something off and as soon as you're ready to do it, something stops you.”

While Blake tries to make small talk with him, as if they are friends, as if they were ever friends, Avon puzzles over what he thinks he's doing. Finally, a smile comes to his face as it clicks into place, and makes sense.

So this is to be his punishment. A small one, sure, but one calculated to wound Avon just where it will hurt most – his pride. To have Blake reduce him to little more than a servant to his master, yes, that requires a certain degree of cunning, and knowing. He's almost impressed.

(Although he wonders if it is really any different to what Blake's been doing to him ever since they met.)

“And there is no-one else who could help you with this?”

Blake swallows hard. “No.”

He sits down without bothering to get Avon's agreement, and Avon knows it's not a choice. He picks up the razor carefully, as if it might attack. As weapons go, it's rather primitive, but certainly effective. “There are safer ways of shaving, you know.”

“Yes, but they're not as reliable,” said Blake. Avon can't help but smile. It's funny to hear Blake complain of something else being unreliable. “Besides, I prefer the old-fashioned methods.”

“Of course you do,” he says, and Blake smiles too. It's unsettling. Avon does his best to ignore it, wetting the washer with a resigned sigh and applying it to Blake's face. The stubble beneath his fingers feels coarse and hard. He does his best not to stare too blatantly at the scar, which looks uglier from up close.

“I did hope you would come find me,” Blake murmurs, head thrown back and neck bared, seeming awfully relaxed for a man sat in front of someone who tried to kill him not two days ago with a blade in hand. “I didn't mean to run out on you the way I did. It wasn't until after I contacted Liberator that I realised the Federation were after me – and I didn't want to lure you into a trap. So I slipped off-world before you could come get me. Well, you did say you wanted to be free of me.”

Avon frowned. He did say that, didn't he? How foolish he was, to think being free of Blake's physical presence could make him free of _him_.

He wonders how much of Blake's little story is actually true. It's plausible enough, but Avon's spent so much time wondering _why_ Blake didn't come back (and no shortage of time thinking he knew why – because he was dead) that no explanation could satisfy him. That, admittedly, is his problem, not Blake's.

Washer set aside and soap in hand, Avon starts to lather Blake's face, the skin hot against hand. He forces away a shiver. He always knew Blake would never touch him, now he really never will.

“Cally isn't with you,” says Blake.

Avon stops. “She's dead.” What else can he say? That is the truth of it. Cally is dead, because he wasn't good enough to save her – nothing he says now will change that.

Blake closes his eyes, grief-stricken. “I knew it,” he says, catching Avon off guard. “I'm not sure how. I – I heard her. I thought it was just a dream, but... I knew she was dead.” He sighs. “I just didn't want to know.”

For once in his life, Avon is almost struck dumb. “I'm sorry.”

Blake shakes his head. “It's not your fault.”

 _Oh, but it is._ He wonders how Blake would react if he actually explained what happened – how reckless, how thoughtless, how desperate he had been, how he had cost them so much for a hope and a prayer. Would he be angry? Or would he beatifically offer his forgiveness, as if _he_ was the one Avon had wronged?

The latter sounded more likely, given Blake's messiah complex, but the former was what he would do if the roles were reversed. It had been. When Gan died, he was angry – he liked Gan, despite himself, as he liked Cally, because they were two people nigh-impossible not to like. He was angry that Gan was dead and he was angry that he cared, and he took it out on Blake, without shame or hesitation. Because it was all his fault.

He had thought Blake's little sabbatical was just a show, a farce, meant to bend them to his whims like always. Now he isn't so sure.

Avon feels a little sick as he moved the soap to the other cheek, just beneath Blake's scar, too cowardly to tell Blake the whole truth.

“Jenna's dead too,” Blake says, bluntly, and Avon nods.

“I know. Tarrant told me.” He was uncharacteristically tactful about it too, as if he thought it would hurt him – and it did. That surprised him, because he didn't like Jenna, not really, no more than she liked him. And yet the thought of her being gone, having blown herself up to get out of whatever nightmare Blake had gotten her into, and him having no idea about it – it aches inside him with all the other things that made him ache. He doesn't know why.

“Tarrant.” Blake smiles slightly, to Avon's confusion. “He's a good man. You're lucky you found him.”

“Really.” Avon thinks Blake's impression of Tarrant's character is a little rosy, given they have known each other for one day and Tarrant had almost gotten him killed at the end of it – although Avon knows he sounds ungrateful, given how Tarrant plummeted to what looked like certain death to save his life and then desperately tried to warn him of impending betrayal. How was he to know that Blake was trustworthy if Avon didn't either?

It does follow a certain logic – Avon has never gotten along with Tarrant and he's never gotten along with Blake, and so of course they get on with each other. _Hopefully they'll be very happy together,_ he thinks, petty and jealous in a way he knows is hopelessly undignified. He can't say they have nothing in common.

Indeed, that was part of what he's always found so irritating about Tarrant – he is like Blake in so many ways, but all that does is remind Avon that he isn't Blake. Avon's never liked inferior knock-offs of anything.

“So he passed your little test then?” Avon asks, cold.

Blake's eyes open and he looks rather annoyed. “Yes.”

He was probably trying to lighten the mood, and does not care for Avon dragging them back to one of the many reasons the mood is so low. He finds he's not very guilty about it. He sees no reason to let Blake pretend things are fine between them if things are not fine.

They fall into an uncomfortable silence as Avon finishes lathering Blake's face and neck, returning to the silver razor with a sinking feeling. It is sharp. He fights the vague urge to slice it along his own skin to see how sharp – he doesn't want Blake thinking he's gone mad (though it may be true).

Blake waits for him, eyes closed, chest rising and falling evenly. For a second Avon thinks he might have fallen asleep. He looks so _vulnerable_ , presenting his throat to Avon like a wolf, and Avon knows he's being mocked. Not even by Blake, necessarily, but by someone. Did he not dream of this once, to make Blake bend to his will for once, instead of being inexorably bent by his? And does it not repulse him now, the thought he could hurt Blake so badly in this desperate need to own him?

When Avon presses the blade to Blake's jaw his eyes pop open. He is not so deep in dreams then. “You can change your mind, you know,” Avon tells him, himself so far gone he isn't sure if he's being caring or mocking. “It's easy enough to grow a beard.”

Blake chuckles. “Why, do you think one would suit me?”

“Yes, I rather thought it did.”

Avon curses himself as Blake looks up at him curiously. He has no reason to know what Blake would look like with a beard – not that Blake knows of anyway. Avon has dreaded the grief and guilt of having to explain how he lost the Liberator, Cally – he's not sure he can take the humiliation of telling Blake _why_ it happened. Especially not now.

He hadn't realised until after Terminal. In the numbness following that disaster, he had been able to see himself as if from the outside. He'd realised that, logically, nothing he'd done made any sense unless he was hopelessly, desperately in love with Blake. And Avon prided himself on nothing more than his logic. Of course, at the time he thought Blake was dead, and he had left it all much too late.

Blake isn't dead, but it's still too late.

Desperate to distract him, Avon grazes his razor across Blake's cheek, finally taking some of those furs he was called in to deal with. Blake shivers against the cold of the metal, then leans back, and lets him get on with it.

It's tempting to imagine, as he cleanses the hair from Blake's face, that he can make him look like he used to, clean-shaven as he was the last time they saw each other, when Blake told him how much he trusted him, had always trusted him – and with that he can wipe away the reason he's given Blake to change his mind.

Tempting, but Avon's never been given to romantic flights of fancy and he's not going to start now. Besides, he knows he can't make Blake look like he used to – that scar and eye that's clearly been terribly damaged by something, though he has no idea what, are a testament otherwise.

Still, as he slides his razor slowly and methodically across Blake's skin, his pulse starts to quicken, until it feels like his heart might beat right out of his chest. It's arousing, he realises. To have Blake so open, so exposed to him, even in this cruel parody of submission, it stirs him more than anything else could. And it disgusts him. He disgusts himself, rather, and Blake is something of a spectator to his bitter self-loathing.

Blake's breathing gets louder as Avon moves south, scraping beneath his chin, as he pushes it high in the air to make it easier. Proud as ever, but why shouldn't Blake be proud? What does _he_ have to be ashamed of?

He wishes he could rush through this and be done with it, but he knows he won't. He won't take that risk – he has a glorified knife to Blake's throat, and any slip, accidental or otherwise, would spell disaster. Even if he manages not to cut an artery, just a nick would be proof enough – that he cannot be trusted, that he can and will hurt Blake if given the chance. He could say he didn't mean to, but why should Blake believe him?

For some reason, probably linked to his growing madness, his arousal is not abated by the knot of tension in his belly – on the contrary it only makes it worse, the blood pumping through his veins also pumping elsewhere. Thankfully Blake's eyes are closed, so he doesn't notice, but Avon doesn't find that the relief it ought to be – Blake is gasping by now, golden skin bare and vulnerable to Avon's blade, and he hates it. _Please, Blake, if you ever didn't hate me, don't mock me._

As the razor slides across Blake's throat, right where he is most vulnerable, he gulps. It takes Avon by surprise – the knife almost slips, almost cuts Blake's skin, and it is pure reflex that means he acts in time to stop it.

After that, Avon wrenches his eyes shut, and tosses the damn thing in the sink. “Blake, we don't have to continue this if you're frightened,” he snarls, sullen, turning around and folding his arms over himself defensively. “You've made your point. Rest assured, I am now, as I have ever been, nothing better than your servant. You don't have to risk your life just to put me in my place.”

Slowly, Blake's gasping breaths grow quiet. When Avon dares to face him again, he blinks with his one good eye, as if he is only just coming back to reality. “Wait, you think _that's_ why I'm doing this?”

Avon raises his brows. _Isn't it?_ He wonders what game Blake is playing now.

Blake sighs in frustration. “Avon, I trust you,” he says, sounding just like he did by Star One. “I meant to show you that. Why would anyone let someone press a razor blade to their throat if they didn't trust them?”

By instinct, Avon scoffs at that. He can't believe it. “What, after I tried to kill you?” Not even Blake is that foolish.

“I trust you _because_ you tried to kill me.” Avon is baffled by that, and awaits an explanation of how that could possibly make sense even to Blake's often spurious logic. “Because you thought I had turned, that I was a tool of the Federation, and you did the right thing – you took me out, and if I really had betrayed the cause, I should have been taken out. I don't blame you for anything.”

Avon feels an odd ache then. _He thinks I'm so much better than I am._ He's long suspected that, but didn't want to acknowledge it – acknowledging Blake's expectations would saddle him with the burden of meeting those expectations. Avon has convinced himself that he wasn't always trying to do that.

“Come now, Blake, I don't give a damn about your cause and you know it.” He's not sure if it's true. At least, he's been acting like he cares about the cause long enough it almost feels like he does. “I tried to kill you because I thought you had betrayed _me_. That's the only thing that mattered.”

He shouldn't have made that admission, and he's not sure Blake sees it for what it is. “ _Still_ ,” he says, face half shaved, pulling Avon's sleeve with painful earnestness. “I know what you've been doing, since I've been away. How hard you've fought to bring that woman down. You could have run and declared it all somebody else's fight, but you didn't, because deep down you do care. And Avon, I am so, so proud of you.”

Blake is proud of him – not only does he not hate him, he's _proud_ of him. Avon confesses to himself he wanted that. Isn't that what he's been trying to do ever since Terminal, when he thought there was no Blake left and so the only way to honour him was to _be_ him, to bring down the Federation or die trying, just as he had done. Perhaps, in some childish way Avon thought that if he only did it right, if he made Blake proud enough that would bring him back.

He wondered what Blake would think if he knew everything Avon had done since they'd last seen each other. How many people he had thrown aside for his own interests. How he had almost thrown Vila, the last person they both knew who hadn't lost their life for the fact, aside like old trash. How he shot the one person who came close to bringing that woman, Servalan, down – because she betrayed him and surely, that was the only thing that mattered?

While he is reminding himself how little he deserves Blake's love and forgiveness, he feels a pair of lips upon his own, drawing him back to a purely physical reality. He can't help but kiss back, years of desire funneled into this one moment, but when they pull apart he is no less baffled.

Blake looks sheepish. “I told myself, if I ever saw you again, I'd stop being a coward and do that.” He shrugs. “Wasn't sure I'd get the chance again.”

Avon swallows hard. _He wants me._ He doesn't know why or how, but perhaps that's neither here nor there. “You got soap on my shirt,” he says, because that is real and physical and makes sense, like nothing else does.

He makes Blake laugh. After all this time, he can still do that. “I'm sorry. To be fair, I've done much worse.” Yes, that's true. Blake's done much worse to him, and he's done much worse to Blake – and yet Blake makes like it can all be forgiven, if not forgotten. That after everything, they still have a future. “Alright, you finish shaving me, and any kissing can wait until after that. I can be patient.”

Avon still doesn't believe this is true, not really, but he reaches and fetches the razor from the basin regardless. Blake still believes in him, for some reason, and so he tries with all his might to believe in Blake.


End file.
